The Pros and Cons of Pay-Per-Click Marketing

Pay Per Click also referred to as PPC is an advertising model used on websites in the way of text or image ads that will clicked that will take the visitor to the website of the advertiser. The website that had the ad was hosting the ad and will receive a specific amount of money when the ad is clicked such as 5 cents per click. Some advertisers on the other hand, only pay when a product is purchased via the link in the ad. Search engines and content websites are different in the way they charge for placing the ad on their websites. Search engines normally ask advertisers to bid on a keyword or keyword phrase to target their market. Content websites usually charge a certain amount per click instead of using a bidding system.

The way in which you bid for keywords is that you decide what amount you want to pay when someone clicks on your ad. If you bid the highest, then you have the chance to be number one for that keyword or keyword phrase. This does not mean that you will be number one as the search engines also use what they call quality score to determine who gets in number one position.

Now, when someone clicks on your pay per click ad, they will of course, be sent to your website. You will be charged what you bid every time the ad is clicked. Lets say you won the bid at .10 cents, then after 100 people click your ad you will be charged $10. If you won the bid, you will more than likely be the first when the keyword or keyword phrase is placed in the search box.

Disadvantages of Pay Per Click

Pay per click advertising can be very expensive and you must remember you are paying when someone clicks on your link. This does not guarantee a sale. The bidding war is also very addicting. You of course, want to win no matter the cost that is if you lose sight of your budget and only want to win for your keywords. Too many times, bidding becomes a war that you want to win and you end up bidding more than you would have if you had not let your ego do the bidding. If you decide that, you have to be number one for a specific keyword or keyword phrase you may end up paying thousands of dollars on your pay per click campaign and not even recovering half. You must also understand that keywords that are popular and searched for more than others will certainly be higher and is often referred to as bid inflation.

Bid inflation occurs by search engines that place all kinds of restriction on several keywords as well as bidding to satisfy one’s ego. These two factors increase the cost of the pay per click even when no one is bidding on those keywords or keyword phrases at the time.

The sad news is that your ad will most often be spread out to other search engines via search boxes on partners and networks. Some of the traffic you are seeing may be junk traffic, meaning your ad caught their eye and they want to see more, but they are not going to purchase anything.

As long as you are getting traffic via clicks, you are paying out your bid amount on each click. You may be seeing traffic increase, but you may not be seeing the money flowing your way. If you look at other methods where you decide on a specific amount of money to use to improve your rankings in search engines, you will see that pay per click advertising may not be such a good deal.

Advantages of Pay Per Click

If you are looking for quick traffic, then pay per click is the way to go. You can even get top placement for your choice of keywords or keywords phrases in most cases that is, if people are looking for the keywords that won you the bid. Along with that you will have had to written a killer ad that will get enough attention for potential customers to want to visit your website.

No matter who you talk with, they will tell you that pay per click is a fast advertising road to take that can give you targeted traffic in only a few short minutes of opening an account. This can be seen with Google Adwords.

Pay per click advertising is also very flexible. You can with most campaigns adjust the wording or keywords quicker than other forms of advertising. With pay per click, you can provide adjustments to cater to visitors to your website, just by changing a few keywords and the change will be seen within hours or a day possibly two, whereas with other forms of advertising, you may not be able to change anything at all or you may not notice a difference for months.

Pay per click is commonly inexpensive when you look at other forms of advertising. You may find that you are only paying 5 cents per click for your keywords, which is truly a savings over other forms of advertising.

Pay Per Click Advertising does have its place in the majority of businesses; however, it is not always good to put all your eggs in one basket. Pay per click is great for a short-term campaign offering a new product or service. If you offer something on your website that can be purchased the moment the visitor arrives, pay per click is a good option. If you are trying to get traffic through a “niche” keyword, pay per click is a good idea.

Other forms of obtaining traffic such as search engine optimization is a long-term process, whereas pay per click is a fast process. Both of these methods will work in their own way. You must decide if a short-term advertising campaign is what you want, or you want to use pay per click advertising along with other methods such as search engine optimization strategies.